How raising our arms like Elon Musk signifies allegiance to an idea or cause greater than ourselves

The idea that raising the right arm in the air is a Nazi salute is a strange distortion of history. For decades, American schoolchildren used this gesture to pledge loyalty to their country.

The above photograph does not show, as one might easily suppose, a group of small children in Nazi Germany, being persuaded to show their adoration of Adolf Hitler. It is instead in fact a class of schoolchildren in the United States in May 1942, pledging allegiance to the flag. They are doing so by means of the so-called ‘Bellamy Salute’, named after the Francis Bellamy, man who wrote the pledge of allegiance to the Unites States which American schoolchildren recite. From the 1890s onwards, the recitation of the pledge was accompanied by what we now think of as the Nazi salute. This was used for half a century, between 1892 and1942, when it was changed to the hand being held over the heart. Of course, the same salute was adopted in Germany during the Third Reich, as may be seen below.